
Book ,3.3 

Copyright!*! 



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'J.I 






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mm 






Southern TKHritera. 



Biographical and Critical Studies. 

Charles €guert eraaaocft, 

$b William Calotte JBasftervill, 



FEBRUARY, I8&T* 



Barbee & Smith, Agents, 

2Vasltvi22e, Tenn. 




Copyrighted by Barbee <fc Smith, Agents, 1897. 



Southern Writers, 



£L 



BIOGRAPHICAL AND 
CRITICAL STUDIES. , < i 

^e^ 

"\3> 



BY WILLIAM MALONE BASKERVILL 



. $' 



Volume I. 



16MO. 404 PAGES, 76 CENTS. 

This present, and the preceding numbers— Irwin 
Russell, Joel Chandler Harris, Maurice Thompson, 
Sidney Lanier, George W. Cable— of Southern Wri- 
ters have been put in a volume as indicated above. 

Dr. Baskervill has somewhat modified the origi- 
nal scheme of these papers and enlarged their scope. 

The succeeding numbers will include James Lane 
Allen, Thomas Nelson Page, Richard Malcolm John- 
ston, Mrs. Burton Harrison, Miss Grace King, 
" Sherwood Bonner," Mrs. Margaret Preston, Sam- 
uel Minturn Peck, and Madison Cawein. 

When these shall have run their course serially 
they will be gathered into another volume, with a 
concluding chapter on Other Contemporary South- 
ern Writers of Fiction. 

Single numbers, in paper covers, as heretofore, 
10 cents each. 

BARBEE L SMITH, Agents, 
NASHVILLE TENN. 






Gbarles BQbert Crafcfcocft* 

^ 'THE appearance of Miss Mary 
4£^> I Noailles Murf ree as a writer em- 
t$ A phasized the fact that the old or- 
der of the South- had utterly passed 
away. For more than one hundred 
years the different generations of 
her family had been commonwealth- 
builders, not writers. Her great- 
great-grandfather, William Murf ree, 
was a member of the North Caro- 
lina Congress which met at Hali- 
fax, November 12, 1776, for the pur- 
pose of framing a constitution for 
the new state. A year before, his 
son Hardy, just twenty-three years 
old, had been made a captain in the 
Continental line of his native state, 
and at the capture of Stony Point 
he had risen to the rank of major 
and was in command of a body of 
, picked men. His descendants still 
treasure the sash that he used in 
357 



Cbarles Egbert Cra&Docft, 

helping to bear the mortally wound- 
ed Gen. Francis Nash from the bat- 
tle-field of Germantown. Before 
independence was won, he was pro- 
moted again, and after peace reigned 
once more Col. Murfree "was found 
busy with his plantation " on the 
banks of Meherrin River, near Mur- 
freesboro, N. C, till 1807, when he 
removed to Middle Tennessee, set- 
tling in Williamson County, on 
Murfree's fork of West Harpeth 
River. Those early settlers had an 
eye for rich lands and pleasant 
places. The town of Murfreesboro, 
not far off, was named in his honor, 
and his family throve and married 
well. 

Just prior to the Civil War Hardy 
Murfree's grandson, William R. 
Murfree, was a successful lawyer in 
Nashville and the owner of a large 
amount of property in and about the 
city. His wife was Priscilla, the 
daughter of Mr. David Dickinson, 
whose residence, " Grantlands," near 
358 



Gbarles Egbert Grad&ocft. 



Murf reesboro, was in its day the most 
magnificent in that region. In this 
home was born, about 1850, a little 
girl to whom her parents gave the 
name Mary Noailles, but whom most 
people will prefer to remember as 
Charles Egbert Craddock. 

In childhood a paralysis, which 
caused lameness for life, deprived 
her of all participation in the sports 
of children and set her bright and 
active mind to work to devise its 
own amusement and entertainment. 
Early sickness has more than once 
proved a blessing in disguise to the 
future writer of fiction by teaching 
him to train the observation, to live 
in good books, and to company with 
his fancies. It sent Scott to the 
country and to the fountains of leg- 
end and story, strongly inclined 
Dickens to reading, and laid Haw- 
thorne upon the carpet to study the 
long day through. In the same way 
the Tennessee girl early developed 
a marked fondness for works of fic- 
359 



Cbarles Egbert Graooocfc. 

tion. It is easy to see that Scott and 
George Eliot were her favorites, and 
after reading with great earnestness 
one of their stirring and enlarging 
romances she would in her imagina- 
tion body forth the entire story, in- 
vesting mother, father, and other 
members of the large household 
with the characteristics of the per- 
sons of the powerful drama. 

While an imagination originally 
vivid was thus strengthened, her life 
and surroundings encouraged a nat- 
ural tendency to acute observation. 
After the cordial Southern manner, 
hospitality reigned in her home, and 
the wide family connection and many 
friends were equally hospitable. At 
the academy in Nashville, where 
she was put to school, she was asso- 
ciated with the daughters of the best 
families in her own and neighboring 
states. She must also have been 
thrown much with her brother and 
other boys, for few masculine wri- 
ters show so thorough an under- 
360 



Cbarles yBQbcxt CtaoDocfc. 

standing and appreciation of boy 
nature. And then there were the 
family servants, to whom every 
Southern child of the old regime 
was indebted for unique cultivation 
of the fancy" and many lasting im- 
pressions. To this day, it is said, 
Charles Egbert Craddock finds 
more enjoyment in a boy or darky 
than in anything else. 

This condition of society, along 
with her father's and mother's large 
estates, was swept away by the war. 
The old Dickinson mansion was still 
standing, and to this the family now 
went, expecting to stay only a short 
time, but remaining for years. This 
is the house of " Where the Battle 
Was Fought," and though the vivid 
description of it and the battle-field 
in the opening chapter of this novel 
is somewhat fanciful, enough of the 
reality remains to give us an accu- 
rate impression of the scenes amid 
which she now lived. 

** By wintry daylight the battle- 
361 



Cbaties Bebert Cta&oocfc. 

field is still more ghastly. Gray 
with the pallid crab-grass which so 
eagerly usurps the place of last sum- 
mer's crops, it stretches out on every 
side to meet the bending sky. The 
armies that successively encamped 
upon it did not leave a tree for miles, 
but here and there thickets have 
sprung up since the war, and bare 
and black they intensif}' the gloom 
of the landscape. The turf in these 
segregated spots is never turned. 
Beneath the branches are rows of 
empty, yawning graves, where the 
bodies of soldiers were temporarily 
buried. Here, most often, their 
spirits walk, and no hire can induce 
the hardiest plowman to break the 
ground. Thus the owner of the land 
is fain to concede these acres to his 
ghostly tenants, who pay no rent. 
A great brick house, dismantled and 
desolate, rises starkly above the dis- 
mantled desolation of the plain. De- 
spite the tragic aspect of this build- 
ing, it offers a certain grotesque sug- 
362 



Gbavles Bgbert Crafcoock. 

gestion — it might seem in the mad 
ostentation of its proportions a vast 
caricature of succumbed prosperi- 
ties. There is no embowering shrub- 
bery about it, no enclosing fence. It 
is an integrant part of the surround- 
ing ruin. Its cupola was riddled by 
a cannonade, and the remnants shake 
ominously with every gust of wind ; 
there are black fissures in the stone 
steps and pavements where shells 
exploded ; many of the windows are 
shattered and boarded up. . . . The 
whole place was grimly incongruous 
with the idea of a home, and as he 
[the hero of the story] was ushered 
into a wide, bare hall, with glimpses 
of uninhabited, unfurnished rooms 
on either hand, there was intimated 
something of those potent terrors 
with which it was instinct — the pur- 
suing influences of certain grisly 
deeds of trust, for the battle-field, 
the gruesome thickets, the house it- 
self, all were mortgaged." 

As a recompense for this monoto- 
363 



Cbarles Bgbert Craofcoclu 

nous and disheartening existence 
amid scenes of former happiness 
and splendor came the annual so- 
journ of the family during the sum- 
mer months in the mountains of 
Eastern Tennessee, which was re- 
peated for fifteen successive years. 
Breathing this invigorating air, the 
thoughtful girl also enjoyed the wild 
birds and wilder flowers, the sylvan 
glades and foaming cataracts, and 
companioned daily with the Blue 
Ridge, the Bald, the Chilhowee, and 
the Great Smoky Mountains, whose 
tops pierced the blue sky and whose 
steep and savage slopes were covered 
with vast ranges of primeval forest. 
These scenes were so indelibly 
etched upon her memory that in 
after-years a rare profusion of 
perfect pictures was easily obtain- 
able. The very atmosphere itself 
of her life at this period seems to 
be preserved in the opening para- 
graph of "The Despot of Broom- 
Sedge Cove : " " On a certain steep 
364 



Cbatles Babert Ctaooocfc. 

and savage slope of the Great 
Smoky Mountains the primeval 
wilderness for many miles is un- 
broken save by one meager clear- 
ing. The presence of humanity 
upon the earth is further attested 
only by a log cabin, high on the 
rugged slant. At night the stars 
seem hardly more aloof than the val- 
ley below. By day the mountains 
assert their solemn vicinage, an aus- 
tere company. The clouds that si- 
lently commune with the great peaks, 
the sinister and scathing deeds of the 
lightnings, the passionate rhetoric of 
the thunders, the triumphal pageant- 
ry of the sunset tides, and the wist- 
ful yearnings of the dawn aspiring 
to day — these might seem the only 
incidents of this lonely and exalted 
life. So august is this mountain 
scheme that it fills all the visible 
world with its massive, multitudi- 
nous presence ; still stretching into 
the dim blue distances an infinite 
perspective of peak and range and 
1* 365 



Cbarles Bgbert Craooocfc. 



lateral spur, till one may hardly be- 
lieve that fancy does not juggle with 
fact." 

But the deepest interest of a na- 
ture rich in thought, imagination, 
and wide human sympathy centered 
in the dwellers among those wild and 
rugged fastnesses. They were for 
the most part descendants of the 
earliest settlers in the Old North 
State, and more than three-quarters 
of a century before had climbed 
over the high ranges which form a 
natural boundary between Tennes- 
see and her parent state and perched 
on the mountain sides or nestled in 
the coves of their new home. To 
them the great world outside and 
beyond the hazy boundaries of their 
mountain ranges remained an un- 
known land ; and the tide of mod- 
ern progress dashed idly at the foot 
of their primitive ideas and conserv- 
ative barriers. There was no room 
for progress, for the mountaineers 
were not only satisfied with things 
366 



Gbaries Egbert GraD&ocft. 

as they existed, but were unaware 
that there could be a different exist- 
ence. For centuries no enlargement 
had come into their narrow individ- 
ual lives and scant civilization, which 
to the casual observer seemed as 
bare and blasted as the " balds " 
upon the Great Smokies. 

But to this acute and sympathetic 
observer were revealed not only the 
elemental qualities of our common 
humanity, but also the sturdy inde- 
pendence, integrity, strength of char- 
acter, and finer feelings always found 
in the English race, however dis- 
guised by rugged exterior or hin- 
dered by harsh environment. Their 
honesty, their patriotism, their re- 
spect for law, their gloomy Calvin- 
istic religion, their hospitality were 
in spite of the most curious modifi- 
cations the salient points of a stri- 
king individuality and unique char- 
acter. The mountains seemed to im- 
part to them something of their own 
dignity, solemnity and silence. 
367 



Cbarles Egbert CraooocFu 



Their archaic dialect and slow, drawl- 
ing speech could flash with dry hu- 
mor and homely mother -wit and 
glow with the white heat of biting 
sarcasm or lofty emotion. Their 
deliberate movements and impassive 
faces veiled deep feelings and pent- 
up passions, and they could be as sud- 
den and destructive as Nature her- 
self in her fiercer moods, or as ten- 
der and self-forgetful as Mary of 
Magdala. Fearless of man and open 
foes, the bravest of them shuddered 
at the mention of the " harnt of 
Thunderhead " and shrank from 
opening the graves of the " little 
people." Every stream and cave 
had its legend or spirit, and tower- 
ing crag and blue dome were chron- 
icled in tradition and story. No 
phase of this unique life escaped the 
keen eye and powerful imagination 
of the most robust of Southern wri- 
ters in this most impressible period 
of her life. 

The growth of Craddock's art 
368 



Gbarles Egbert Crao&ocft. 

can not now be traced with certain- 
ty, though it is known that she 
served an apprenticeship of nearly 
ten years before her stories began 
to make any stir in the world. The 
general belief, therefore, that her lit- 
erary career began with the " Dan- 
cin' Party at Harrison's Cove," which 
appeared in the Atlantic for May, 
1878, is incorrect. She used to con- 
tribute to the weekly edition of Ap- 
plet oil's Jotirnal^ which ceased pub- 
lication in that form in 1876, and it 
is a little remarkable that her con- 
tributions were even then signed 
Charles E. Craddock. Two of her 
stories were left over, and one of 
them, published in ;f Appleton's Sum- 
mer Book," in 1880, "Taking the 
Blue Ribbon at the Fair," rather in- 
dicates that she had not yet discov- 
ered wherein her true power lay. 
Although it is a pleasing little story, 
it is not specially remarkable for any 
of the finer qualities of her later 
writings ; and it appears out of place 
24 369 



Cbarles Babett GraD&ocft. 



in a collection of stories published in 
1895, as if it were a new production. 
The assumed name which her wri- 
tings bore was finally determined 
upon by accident, though the matter 
had been much discussed in her fam- 
ily. It was adopted for the double 
purpose of cloaking failure and of 
securing the advantage which a man 
is supposed to have over a woman 
in literature. It veiled one of the 
best-concealed identities in literary 
history. More than one person di- 
vined George Eliot's secret, and the 
penetrating Dickens observed that 
she knew what was in the heart of 
woman. But neither internal nor 
external evidence offered any clue to 
Craddock's personality. The start- 
lingly vigorous and robust style and 
the intimate knowledge of the moun- 
tain folk in their almost inaccessible 
homes, suggestive of the sturdy 
climber and bold adventurer, gave 
no hint of femininity, while certain 
portions of her writings, both in 
370 



Cbarles Bgbert GraDDocfc. 



thought and treatment, were pecul- 
iarly masculine. 

In no way did Craddock betray 
" his " identity . Mr. Ho wells, who 
was the first to perceive the striking 
qualities of the stories, never sus- 
pected that the new writer was a 
woman ; and Mr. Aldrich, who short- 
ly succeeded him, and one of whose 
first acts as editor was to write to 
" My Dear Craddock " for further 
contributions, was equally wide of 
the mark, though he mused consid- 
erably over the personality of the 
remarkably original contributor. 
Once, indeed, he wrote asking how 
the latter could have become so inti- 
mate with the strange, quaint life of 
the mountaineers, but the pleasant re- 
ply threw no light upon the author's 
personality. Gradually, however, 
the mystery cleared away, though 
the final revelation was reserved for 
a particularly dramatic situation. 

In the course of a year or two the 
editor and publishers learned that 
371 



Cbarles Sgbert Cra&Docft. 



M. N. Murfree was the author's real 
name, and Mr. Aldrich rather prided 
himself, we are told, upon directing 
his communications thereafter to M. 
N. Murfree, Esq., feeling very con- 
fident that one who evinced such 
knowledge of the law as appeared 
in her writings and wrote with such 
a pen could be no other than a law- 
yer. The manuscript of "Mr." 
Craddock certainly had nothing fem- 
inine about it, with its large, bold 
characters, every letter as plain as 
print, and strikingly thick, black 
lines. So liberal indeed was the au- 
thor in the use of ink that the editor 
had his little joke, as he was writing 
to ask for what proved to be the 
powerful novel of the " Prophet of 
the Great Smoky Mountains," re- 
marking, " I wonder if Craddock 
has laid in his winter's ink yet, so 
that I can get a serial out of him." 
What was his surprise, therefore, as 
one Monday morning in March, 
1885, he was called from the edito- 
372 



Gbarles Egbert arafc&ocft. 

rial room, to find awaiting him be- 
low a young lady of slight form, 
about five feet four inches in height, 
with blond complexion and light- 
brown, almost golden hair, bright, 
rather sharp face, with all the fea- 
tures quite prominent — forehead 
square and projecting, eyes gray, 
deep-set, and keen, nose Grecian, 
chin projecting, and mouth large — 
who quietly remarked that she was 
Charles Egbert Craddock ! 

Miss Murfree's literary success 
really began with the publication of 
her collection of short stories, " In 
the Tennessee Mountains," in May, 
1884. It was at once recognized 
that another Southern writer of un- 
common art, originality, and power 
had entered into a field altogether 
new and perfectly fresh. Only here 
and there was discernible the slight- 
est trace of imitation in conception 
or manner, while the atmosphere 
was entirely her own; and to the 
rare qualities of sincerity, simplicity, 
1** 373 



Cbarles Bgbert Craooocfc. 



and closeness of observation were 
added the more striking ones of 
vivid realization and picturing of 
scene and incident and character. 
Her magic wand revealed the poetry 
as well as the pathos in the hard, 
narrow, and monotonous life of the 
mountaineers, and touched crag and 
stream, and wood and mountain 
range with an enduring splendor. 
All the admirable qualities of her 
art are present in this volume. The 
spontaneous, instinctive power of 
telling a story for its own sake pro- 
claimed close kinship with Scott, 
while the exquisite word-painting 
and beautiful descriptions of moun- 
tain scenery, with all the shifting 
phases of spring and autumn, of 
sunset, mist, storm, and forest fire, 
could have been learned only in the 
school of Ruskin and of nature. In 
the profound and tragically serious 
view and contemplation of life she 
is the child of George Eliot and of 
the battle-scarred South. But her 
374 



Cbarles jBghctt GraDDocft. 

real power, as is true of every wri- 
ter that has been either an enriching 
or an uplifting force in human lives, 
rests upon a sympathetic under- 
standing of human life. Her insight 
into the ordinary, commonplace, 
seemingly unpoetic lives of the 
mountaineers, her tenderness for 
them, her perception of the beauty 
and the wonder of their narrow ex- 
istence is one of the finest traits in 
her character and her art. Through 
this wonderful power of human 
sympathy the delicately nurtured 
and highly cultured lady entered 
into the life of the common folk 
and heard their heart-throbs under- 
neath jeans and homespun. She 
realized anew for her fellow men 
that untutored souls are perplexed 
with the same questions and shaken 
by the same doubts that baffle the 
learned, and that it is inherent in hu- 
manity to rise to the heroic heights 
of self-forgetfulness and devotion to 
duty in any environment. Indeed, 
375 



Cbarles Bgbert Gra&Docfc. 



the key-note of her studies is found 
in the last sentence of this volume : 
" The grace of culture is, in its way, 
a fine thing, but the best that art can 
do — the polish of a gentleman — is 
hardly equal to the best that nature 
can do in her higher moods." 

Each of these stories embodies a 
"higher mood" of some uncultiva- 
ted, simple soul influenced by a 
noble motive, and the good lesson 
taught with equal art and modesty 
stirs the heart with refining pity and 
admiration. Cynthia Ware's long 
journeys on foot and heroic exer- 
tions are rewarded with the pardon 
of the unjustly imprisoned man 
whom she loves, only to find that he 
has never taken the trouble to ask 
who secured his release, that his love 
was but a little thing which he had 
left in the mountains, and that while 
she was waiting for him he was 
married to some one else. Through 
Craddock's skill we become witness- 
es of this heart -tragedy and enter 
376 



Cbarles Bgbert GraDoocfe. 

into the inner experience of a human 
soul which through suffering learns 
to adjust itself anew, " ceases to ques- 
tion and regret, and bravely does the 
work nearest her hand." Again it 
is the weak and slender Celia Shaw 
who painfully toils at night through 
the bleak, snow-covered woods to 
save the lives of the men whom her 
father and his friends had deter- 
mined to u wipe out." Again and 
again in Craddock's writings the 
strange miracle of this sweet, trust- 
ful, loving, yet heroic girlhood ap- 
pears amid the lonely, half- mourn- 
ful life of the mountain folk, inten- 
sified by the attitude of the faded, 
gaunt, melancholy older women, 
"holding out wasted hands to the 
years as they pass — holding them 
out always and always empty" — 
with the grace, the beauty, and the 
pervasive fragrance of a wild rose 
in the wilderness. Our author seems 
to agree with George Eliot in think- 
ing that "in these delicate vessels is 
377 



Cbarles jEQbeit Cradfcocft. 

borne on through the ages the treas- 
ure of human affections." 

Craddock's heroes — blacksmiths, 
constables, herders, illiterate preach- 
ers, and other rude mountaineers — 
are equally attractive in their way, 
and are drawn with an even tenderer 
and more skilful hand. She is a 
master in depicting those situations 
which touch the springs of pathos 
or thrill the heart with a generous 
elation. It does not matter whether 
it is merely the noble impulse which 
leads a Bud Wray, or in a later story 
a Mink Lorey — " Mink by name 
and Mink by nature*' — to enthrone 
in one supreme moment the better 
part of his nature, or the settled pur- 
pose and lofty determination of a 
Simon Burney, who gallantly de- 
fends at the risk of his own life and 
gives a permanent home to the ill- 
tempered, worthless little "harnt" 
that walks Chilhowee, saying with 
noble simplicity : k< I'll take keer of 
ye agin them Grims ez long ez I kin 
378 



Cbarles Bsbect Craodocfc. 

fire a rifle. An arter the jury hev 
done let ye off, ye air welcome ter 
live along o' me at my house till ye 
die." The central idea or the strong 
situation, however, is not unduly 
stressed. The touches of incident 
and of humor and the exquisite land- 
scapes leave unfading impressions. 
After thirteen years the ring of the 
metaled hoof upon the flinty path 
echoes in the memory, and the broad 
antlers of the noble stag garlanded 
with blossoming laurels stand out in 
bold relief on the edge of the moun- 
tain road. One can still see the 
highly imaginative picture of the 
gamblers throwing their cards upon 
the inverted basket, first by the light 
of tallow dip and then by the blaze 
of pine knots, while the moon shines 
without and the hidden mimic of the 
woods uncannily repeats their agi- 
tated tones. Nor is the reader likely 
to forget the touch of grim humor 
in the speech of the young moun- 
taineer, glad that the "fightin' preach- 
379 



Cbatles Egbert CraDDocft. 

er *' had prevented him from killing 
the outlaw and horse thief, yet naive- 
ly remarking : "An' the bay filly 
ain't sech a killin' matter, nohow ; 
ef it war the roan three-year-old, 
now, 'twould be different." 

The large and solemn presence of 
Nature is never lost sight of, her va- 
rious moods and manifestations be- 
ing used, as a kind of chorus co in- 
terpret the melancholy or the emo- 
tion of the human actors. The nar- 
rative is inlaid with exquisite bits of 
landscape, serving not so much to 
disclose the range and minuteness 
of the author's observation — at least 
in her earlier works — as to give ex- 
pression to the fitting sentiment or 
development to the appropriate pas- 
sion. When the great beauty of the 
style with which these fresh and ro- 
bust stories were clothed is taken 
into consideration, something of the 
present pleasure and the richer an- 
ticipation of the readers of 1884 may 
be imagined. 

380 



G'mtles JSQbext Grao&ock, 



In September, of the same year, 
"Where the Battle Was Fought" 
appeared, a story in which Craddock 
gives an effective picture of the dev- 
astation caused by the Civil War. 
The plot and the villains intriguing 
for a young girl's property are pure- 
ly conventional, but so far from be- 
ing a misstep this is a story of rich- 
est promise. The unmistakable bent 
of the author's genius is, it is true, 
shown in such creations as Toole, 
Graffy Beale, and Pickie Tait, while 
her superb landscape-painting has 
never been used more suggestively 
and impressively. " There is some- 
thing Hawthornesque in the part 
which inanimate nature is made to 
play in this novel — a gigantic per- 
sonification that wails and loves and 
hates — speechless, yet full of speech ; 
tearless, yet fraught with innumera- 
ble tears ; voiceless, yet full of tongues 
and languages." But the hand that 
sketched Marcia and General Vayne 
gave tokens of possibilities far great- 
381 



Gbartes Egbert GraDDccfc. 

er than could be attained through 
Marcellys, Dorindas, Letitias, and 
Aletheas, or through prophets of the 
Great Smoky Mountains and despots 
of Broom- Sedge Cove, for Nature 
in her higher moods has never pro- 
duced a Romola, a Portia, a Colonel 
Esmond, or a Sir Roger de Coverley. 
As the penetrating Sartor, in speak- 
ing of clothes, observes : " Nature 
is good, but she is not the best; 
here truly was the victory of Art 
over Nature." No one had a better 
chance to know the old Southern 
gentleman than Craddock, and that 
she had made use of her opportunity 
is more than suggested in her real- 
istic description of General Vayne's 
moral magnifying-glass : " Through 
this unique lens life loomed up as 
rather a large affair. In the rickety 
court-house in the village of Chat- 
talla, five miles out there to the south, 
General Vayne beheld a temple of 
justice. He translated an office- 
holder as the sworn servant of the 
382 



Gbaries Egbert Graofcocfc. 

people. The State was this great 
commonwealth, and its seal a proud 
escutcheon. A fall in cotton struck 
him as a blow to the commerce of 
the world. From an adverse polit- 
ical fortune he augured the swift 
ruin of the country. Abstract ideas 
were to him as potent elements in 
human affairs as acts of the Legis- 
lature, and in the midst of the gen- 
eral collapse his large ideals still re- 
tained their pristine proportions." 

Such is the lifelike presentation of 
the sentiments of a certain type of 
old Southerner, and in the further 
portrayal of the one-armed ex- Con- 
federate general the graphic touches 
of speech, manner, noble impulses, 
and actions are so true to nature that 
one readily recognizes the picture as 
a study from life. Though the 
story itself, however, does not pre- 
sent the orderly and artistic devel- 
opment and unfolding of a well-con- 
structed plot, failing chiefly in co- 
herence and a natural transition of 
383 



Cbatles Egbert Gra&Docft, 

scene and incident, and though it 
contains much that is undeniably 
conventional, yet its many strong 
and original features and powerful 
close leave the impression that this 
new departure contains the promise 
of richest possibilities which, it may 
be hoped, Craddock will some day 
realize for the world. 

In her next volume, " Down the 
Ravine," our author takes us back 
to the mountains, and gives us a 
book for boys not easily matched in 
juvenile literature. Avoiding all sen- 
timental weakness and set preach- 
ments, and conveying its fine and 
healthy moral in the whole spirit 
and atmosphere of the story, she un- 
folds plot and underplot simply, 
naturally, and with fine artistic ef- 
fect. Scene, incident, and character 
are fused in the glow of a well-or- 
dered imagination. The ubiquitous 
imp of a small boy is there, of course, 
but can the world do without him 
any better than the story-books? 
384 



Cbarlea jEflbert GraDDocft. 

and also the saving grace of a sis- 
ter's quiet love and shaping influ- 
ence, suggested with rare art and 
delicacy in little Tennessee's con- 
stant presence. But the crowning 
merit of the tale is the fresh and 
original presentation of the old story 
of a mother's love and the beauty of 
confidence between mother and son 
in a rude mountain home. "Don't 
everybody know a boy's mother 
air bound ter take his part agin all 
the worl' ? " she asks with simple 
candor, and when misfortune touch- 
es him every trace of her caustic 
moods disappears and she becomes 
as gentle and tender and wise as if 
she had been nurtured in a lady's 
bower. Years afterward the son 
had not forgotten how stanchly she 
upheld him in every thought when 
all the circumstances belied him. 
'Taint no differ ez long ez 'tain't 
the truth," said his mother, philo- 
sophically. " We-uns will jes' abide 
by the truth." "And day by day as 
25 385 



Cbaiies ©gbert Gtaooocft. 



he went to his work, meeting every- 
where a short word or a slighting 
look, he felt that he could not have 
borne up, save for the knowledge of 
that loyal heart at home." This has 
all been told a thousand times, but 
never in a simpler, healthier, more 
natural way than in this delightful 
little volume. In unity of effect this 
is perhaps Craddock's most perfect 
story. 

In the following October appeared 
"The Prophet of the Great Smoky 
Mountains," and almost every year 
since that time has witnessed the 
appearance of some new volume — 
"In the Clouds," 1886; "The 
Story of Keedon Bluffs," 1887; 
" The Despot of Broomsedge 
Cove," 1888; "In the Stranger 
Peoples' Country," 1891 ; "His 
Vanished Star," 1894 5 " The Phan- 
toms of the Footbridge " and " The 
Mystery of the Witch-Face Moun- 
tain," 1895; while "The Jugglers," 
which has been running as a serial 
386 



Cbarles Babert GtaDoocfc. 



in the Atlantic, has just appeared, 
and " The Mountain Boys " is an- 
nounced for immediate publication. 
Though the result is on the whole 
disappointing — the rare promise of 
the author's earlier work not being 
fulfilled in her later more labored 
efforts — Miss Murfree has taken a 
place among the very best writers of 
purely American fiction. The too 
great regularity of production in 
which she has indulged has led her 
into dreary wastes of repetitious shal- 
lows, and still more frequently has 
weighted her stories with manner- 
isms which mar the beauty and per- 
fection of their art. The reader 
soon begins to scent favorite epi- 
thets and grandiloquent phrases, to 
be on the lookout for the " gibbous" 
moon, the " mellow " moon, the 
" lucent, yellow " moon, and every 
kind of moon that ever was and 
never was, and to divine when the 
katydid is to "twang a vibrant 
note," or the night is to " sigh au- 
387 



Gbatles Bcbert Crafcfcocft. 

dibly in sheer pensiveness," or the 
song of the cicada is to be "charged 
with somnolently melodious post- 
meridian sentiment." 

A still more serious complaint 
may be urged against the author's 
tendency to overdo landscape pic- 
tures, and to make needless digres- 
sions. Miss Murfree is, above all 
things, a painter, and particularly in 
her earlier works has given abun- 
dant evidence that she is a real artist 
in adapting story and landscape to 
each other. Her description, too, 
serves a literary purpose, now ex- 
pressing the fitting sentiment, anon 
developing the appropriate passion. 
She seizes and interprets physical 
features and natural phenomena in 
their relation to various aspects of 
human life with at times unerring 
precision, vigor, and dramatic force. 
Indeed, the scenery of the moun- 
tains is essential to the comprehen- 
sion of the gloom of the religion, 
the sternness of the life, the un- 
388 



Cbarles J6gbert CracDccfc. 

couthness of the dialect, and the 
harshness of the characters pre- 
sented in her stories. 

All her digressions are not irrele- 
vant. Oftentimes what seems to be 
a mere digression is according to 
nature, and used with significant 
effect in the presentation of moun- 
tain scene, life, and character. The 
result is a complete and perfect 
picture. The mountaineers are pro- 
verbially slow of speech and of 
thought, and during their long re- 
flective pauses in conversation the 
skilful narrator must interest the 
mind of the reader just as in real 
life the listener would seek some- 
thing for his mind to dwell upon. 
This gives lifelikeness to the pic- 
ture, and, like a sweet interlude in 
music, a charming bit of description 
serves to fill in delightfully the in- 
tervening moments which would 
otherwise seem unreasonably long 
and tedious. The opening pages of 
" The Despot of Broomsedge Cove" 
3 389 



Cbarles Egbert GraDDocfu 



reveal the author at work in her 
happiest vein and making the best 
use of this extraordinary gift. With 
a few skilful touches the corn-field, 
the winding road, the three moun- 
taineers, each with his salient fea- 
tures of look, gait, and character, 
made known in the fewest possible 
words, and the glorious mountain 
view, are made to stand out before 
us as in real life, so that the reader 
becomes identified with the story 
and naturally shares in the conversa- 
tion. 

" ' The Sperit has been with me 
strong, mighty strong, ter-day,' said 
Teck Jepson suddenly. 1 1 hev 
been studyin' on Moses, from the 
time he lef ' the saidges by the ruver- 
bank,' he added, bridling with a sen- 
timent that was strikingly like the 
pride of earth. Then as he gazed 
down at the landscape his face sof- 
tened and grew pensive." " The 
great ranges were slowly empur- 
pled against the pale eastern horizon, 
390 



Gbarles Bgbeit Cra&Doca. 

delicately blue, for the sua was in 
the western skies. How splendidly 
saffron those vast spaces glowed ! 
What purity and richness of tint ! 
Here and there were pearly wing- 
like sweeps of an incomparable 
glister; and the clouds, ambitious, 
must needs climb the zenith, with 
piled and stately mountainous effects, 
gleaming white, opaque, dazzling. 
The focal fires of the great orb 
were unquenched, and still the yel- 
low, divergent rays streamed forth ; 
yet in its heart was suggested that 
vermilion smoldering of the sunset, 
and the western hills were wait- 
ing." 

« i 'Twas tur'ble hard on Moses,' 
said Teck Jepson, ' when the Lord 
shut him out'n Canaan, arter travel- 
in' through the wilderness. Tur'- 
ble hard, tur'ble hard ! ' " During 
another pause the reader learns that 
this slow talker has an imagination 
aflame with the trials of Moses, the 
glories of Solomon, the atrocities of 
391 



Cbarles Egbert GraDDocft. 



Ahab and Jezebel ; and in his igno- 
rance it had never occurred to him 
that his Biblical heroes had lived 
elsewhere than in the Great Smoky 
Mountains. " Their history had to 
him an intimate personal relation, as 
of the story of an ancestor in the 
homestead ways and closely familiar. 
He brooded upon these narrations, 
instinct with dramatic movement, 
enriched with poetic color, and lo- 
calized in his robust imagination, 
till he could trace Hagar's wild 
wanderings in the fastnesses ; could 
show where Jacob slept and piled 
his altar of stones ; could distinguish 
the bush, of all others on the * bald,' 
that blazed with fire from heaven, 
when the angel of the Lord stood 
within it." In every way this is a 
model introductory chapter, and 
every incident, bit of description, 
explanatory digression, and situa- 
tion serves as an admirable back- 
ground for the heroic picture of 
the Despot, whose impressive per- 
392 



Cbarles Sgbett GraDfcocfc. 

sonality, in spite of qualities that 
would naturally inspire aversion, 
compels our admiration. 

But far too often in her later sto- 
ries the author's descriptions of nat- 
ural scenery and observations of nat- 
ural phenomena are excessive. In 
this paticular novel they reach the 
point of downright padding. The 
pictures are exceedingly well done, 
and the observations are sometimes 
very acute and perfectly true ; but 
they are altogether out of place, and 
serve only to interrupt the action 
and to make the reader chafe, till he 
learns to skip. As a specimen of 
this provoking method we may take 
the account of Parson Donnard's 
endeavor to find out whether it is a 
" human critter " or the devil him- 
self that lights the nightly fires of 
the lonely forge. He and his hypo- 
critical scamp of a son are sitting on 
a rock in the dead of the night with 
every nerve a-quiver; momently 
we are expecting a solution of the 
393 



Cbarles ^Egbert GraDfcocft. 



mystery, but instead of this we are 
kept waiting with remarks about 
the stars, the darkness, the stony 
passes, the briers. Then we have 
shooting-stars and the clarion cock, 
and then again while the ignorant 
and superstitious old mountain 
preacher is intent upon his hand-to- 
hand grapple with the archfiend the 
author credits him with this series of 
sophisticated observations : " He no- 
ted how he seemed to face the great 
concave of the sky, how definite the 
western mountains stood against 
the starry expanse, how distinct cer- 
tain objects had become even in the 
pitchy blackness, now that his eyes 
were in some sort accustomed to it." 
It may readily be acknowledged 
that Miss Murfree's people are the 
people of the district she describes. 
Folk and mountains belong togeth- 
er. But she deals with life rather 
as a whole, as a community, a 
class, at best as a type. She has 
not succeeded in creating any indi- 
394 



Cbarles Bgbert GraDDocfc. 

vidual or distinct character. Even 
Cynthia Ware, Dorinda Cayce, Al- 
ethea Sayles, Letitia Pettingill, and 
Marceliy Strobe, the heroines in as 
many different stories, are but va- 
riants of one and the same type. 
Slight changes are introduced in 
adapting them to different situations, 
but the characters all seem to be 
drawn from the same model. A 
graver defect is noticeable in the 
author's treatment of her he- 
roes, wherein she shows a fatal 
inability to sustain character. When 
the Prophet is introduced, revealing 
in the quick glance of his eye 
"fire, inspiration, frenzy — who can 
say ? " the reader is thrilled at the 
prospect of a masterly delineation. 
He expects to travel along the 
narrow border-land between spir- 
itual exaltation and insanity. But 
in only one of Miss Murfree's 
stories, " The Dancin' Party at 
Harrison's Cove," does she reveal 
a sympathetic understanding and 
395 



Cbatles Egbert GraDdocfe. 

appreciation of the character of the 
minister. With the circuit-riders 
and pa'sons she seems to have had 
no personal acquaintance. They 
are drawn just as we would expect 
them to be depicted by one whose 
sole information was based on tra- 
dition, hearsay, and imagination. 
Nor does Craddock at any time 
exhibit that profound knowledge 
of the human heart and sympa- 
thetic insight into spiritual mat- 
ters revealed by George Eliot in the 
character of Dinah Morris. Pa'son 
Kelsey remains hazy and indistinct 
throughout the story, the reader is 
left in doubt as to his sanity, and the 
catastrophe throws little light upon 
his character. 

The Despot offered even a greater 
opportunity for masterly portraiture. 
In conception this is one of the most 
original and striking figures to be 
found in contemporary literature. 
This dauntless rider, singing his ec- 
static psalms, this arrogant inter- 
396 



Cbarles Bgbert Cra&Docfc. 

preter of "the Lord's will," this 
firm believer in his own might and 
goodness, captivates the imagina- 
tion of the reader from the first mo- 
ment of his dramatic introduction : 
"A moment more and the young 
psalmist came around a curve, gal- 
loping recklessly along beneath the 
fringed boughs of the firs and the 
pines, still singing aloud ; the reins 
upon his horse's neck, his rifle held 
across the pommel of the saddle ; 
his broad hat thrust upon the back 
of his head, his eyes scarcely turn- 
ing toward the men who stood by 
the wayside. . . . The rider 
drew rein. The rapt expression of 
his countenance abruptly changed. 
He fixed imperative, worldly eyes 
upon the speaker. They were deep- 
ly set, of a dark blue color, full of 
a play of expression, and, despite 
the mundane intimations of the mo- 
ment, they held the only sugges- 
tions in his face of a spiritual pos- 
sibility. He had a heavy lower 
397 



Cbarles Egbert Cvaooocft. 

jaw, stern and insistent. A firm, 
immobile mouth disclosed strong, 
even teeth. His nose was slightly 
aquiline, and he had definitely 
marked black eyebrows. 
There was a strong individuality, 
magnetism, about him, and before 
his glance the peremptory spirit of 
his interlocutor was slightly abated." 

After a few chapters, however, 
the author seems to lose interest in 
the working out of her original con- 
ception. The hero is discarded for 
other matters, while at the same 
time the author's grip of the narra- 
tive suffers loss, and the way is 
paved for irrelevant landscapes and 
digressions. Even the hero's con- 
nection with the tragedy of the 
story is accidental, and the heroine 
gradually absorbs the interest and 
the attention of the reader. The 
author almost invariably leaves her 
chief characters looking sadly, if 
not hopelessly, into the future. 

Perhaps Miss Murfree has at- 
398 



Gbarles Sgbert GraDDock* 



tempted an impossible task in seek- 
ing to invest the meager life and 
primitive character of the mountain- 
eers with an annual interest. When 
the author of." Jane Eyre" — a novel 
whose phenomenal success would 
have greatly enhanced the value of 
any work from her pen — was im- 
portuned to write a new story, she 
quietly answered : " I have told all 
I knew in the last one, and I must 
wait two or three years, till I learn 
something more, before I can write 
again." 

But the sweep and power of Miss 
Murfree's narrative in all her finer 
stories is sufficient to carry the read- 
er over greater difficulties than these. 
Story-telling is her true vocation. 
She is no essayist or historian drawn 
by the fashion of the time into the 
facile fields of fiction. Fresh ma- 
terial and picturesque character lend, 
it is true, their unique charms ; but, 
after all, we are interested in this 
writer chiefly on account of the 
399 



Gbaries Egbert Ctafcfcocft. 

stories she has to tell of the lives of 
men and women whose traits are in 
common with those of all times and 
all places. While, however, the 
reader's desire is to reach the end of 
any of her stories and " see how it 
comes out," still there are many 
places where he delights to linger. 
There are whole chapters in which 
scene, situation, and incident are 
handled without a flaw. The 
situations are admirably planned, 
the incidents inimitably related. 
The author can be descriptive or 
dramatic at will, and shows the 
command of a humor which has the 
tang but not the deep thought and 
mellow wisdom of George Eliot's. 

In the meeting between Teck 
Jepson and Marcelly we lose sight 
of the author, so completely does 
she identify herself with the char- 
acters. We feel the fascination of 
this girl as she sits upon the ledge 
of a rock, and delight in the picture 
of the old dog lying wheezingly 
400 



Cbarles Egbert GraDDocfc. 

down in the folds of her blue 
dress, " closing his eyes in a sort of 
blinking resignation " at the rain- 
storm, or rising to yawn, " stretch- 
ing himself to his extreme length, 
rasping his long claws on the 
stones," and so rousing the Des- 
pot's impatience that he bids the 
hound " hush up ! " Her stories 
abound in these graphic scenes. 
Nor would it be true to life if the 
humor were left out. Chaucer, 
Shakespeare, Scott, George Eliot, 
Lowell, Joel Chandler Harris, Ian 
Maclaren — all English writers who 
excel in depicting the life and char- 
acter of the common people — make 
prominent their wit and humor. It 
is a characteristic of the race. The 
Tennessee mountaineer is noted for 
his dry, caustic speech, and under 
his slow drawl and rustic manners 
are concealed no little practical wis- 
dom and shrewd observation. Of 
course geniality and playful fancy 
do not flourish in so harsh a region, 
26 401 



Cfoarles Ssbert GtaDDocfc. 



but there is no lack of pungent, 
pithy sayings. This humor per- 
vades the mountains. " Wall, 'pears 
like to me," says the filly-like Mi- 
randy Jane, " ez Brother Jake To- 
bin sets mo' store on chicken fixin's 
than on grace, an' he fattens ev'y 
year." Old Mis' Cayce quaintly 
remarks : " I 'member when I war 
a gal whisky war so cheap that up 
to the store at the settlemint they'd 
hev a bucket set full o' whisky an' 
a gourd, free fur ail comers, an' 
another bucket alongside with wa- 
ter ter season it. An' the way 
that thar water lasted war surpri- 
sin' ; that it war ! " The dull old 
constable declares that " sech spell- 
in' as Clem Sanders kin do oughter 
be agin the law ! It air agin every 
law o' spellin'. Clem ought to be 
hung a leetle fur each offense. It 
jes' fixes him in his criminal conduct 
agin the alphabet." Dorinda Cayce, 
when the sheriff, who has just en- 
joyed her mother's good dinner, ac- 
402 



Gbarles ^ebert CtaDDock. 

cuses her of harboring a fugitive, 
quietly remarks : " 'Pears like ter 
me ez we gin aid an' comfort ter 
the officer o* the law ez well ez we 
could." Letitia Pettingill's bright 
sayings lighten up many a page 
of " In the Stranger Peoples' Coun- 
try," as well as the lot of the seem- 
ingly deserted wife ; and Marcelly's 
imperative old grandmother makes 
the doctor, and many another, writhe 
under the hail of her stinging sar- 
casm. Without this pungent hu- 
mor the distinct flavor of the inner 
life of the strange, unique inhabit- 
ants of the mountains would be 
lost. 

Here, then, we have originality, 
robust vigor, womanly insight, and 
the charm of a born story-teller 
brought to bear with genuine art 
upon a fresh field and a unique civ- 
ilization. Much of her later work 
may have suffered from an attach- 
ment to the narrow sphere of the 
mountain folk ; but such are her 
403 



Cbarles Ssbert CraD5ocft, 



strength of purpose and great capa- 
bility that it is not unreasonable yet 
to expect the complete fulfilment of 
the promise of her earlier work, if 
the larger world may demand a 
share of her attention and energies. 
404 




NOVELS AND STORIES 

BY 

Cftarles Egbert €raaaeck 

[Miss Mary N. Murfree]. 

«*« 

The Mystery of Witch 'Face Mountain, 
and Other Stories. 16mo $1 00 

His Vanished Star. A Novel. 16mo. . . 1 25 

In the Tennessee Mountains. Stories. 
16mo 1 25 

The Prophet of the Great Smoky Moun' 
tains, A Novel. 16mo ; 1 25 

In the Clouds. A Novel. 16mo 1 25 

The Despot of Broomsedge Cove, A 
Novel. 16mo 1 25 

Where the Battle Was Fought. A Novel. 
16mo 1 25 

Down the Ravine, Illustrated. 16mo.. 1 00 

The Story of Keedon Bluffs. 16mo 1 00 

IN PREPARATION : 

The Young Mountaineers. Illustrated. 

12mo 1 50 

The Juggler. A Novel 

Sold by All Booksellers, Sent, post-paid, by 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 

BOSTON- 





I E A P '09 



